


Carry the Fire

by Zagzagael



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-24
Updated: 2011-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zagzagael/pseuds/Zagzagael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for livejournal's SPN_Cinema fic challenge. I chose the movie "The Road".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry the Fire

  
_You have to carry the fire.  
I don't know how to.  
Yes, you do.  
Is the fire real? The fire?  
Yes it is.  
Where is it? I don't know where it is.  
Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.  
— Cormac McCarthy (The Road)_   


 

Some days were worse than others.

The corner of The Man’s lip lifted with the irony and he grimaced. Hell was Hell regardless and although some days were definitely worse than others, none were better. His mouth rictored back into an expression of resolve. The set of his lips, the lines around his eyes, his nose; all frozen in place by the glacial expanse of the years. Years now.

He coughed, muffling the low, wet sound of it in his glove. But the cough ratcheted up a notch - into a racking fit - and he pulled off the glove so that the blood and brackish mucus from his lungs wouldn’t harden into the leather palm. He spit onto the side of the road. There was no odour, just the blackish phlegm congealed.

Even disease lacked life now. Everything felt murdered, rent and drained, burnt to ash. He had one small spark left inside his body, and that spark was still burning because of The Boys. An ember to remember life.

He wiped his mouth with his knuckles and pulled the glove back on, flexing his fingers into the well worn creases. He glanced up, guilty. Both Boys were looking at him. The Older Boy with narrowed, solemn eyes, the Younger Boy, eyes filled with a watery fear.

He waved his hand, nothing, nothing, it’s nothing. Don’t stop. Keep moving now.

And he patted the handle of the Colt tucked into his belt and the act brought him a small jolt of what he had come to consider a feeling of relief.

The Older Boy was taking a turn pushing the cart. The Younger Boy fell back a step and reached for The Man’s hand. He allowed this, just for a moment, and then gently shook free of the small grip. It felt as though The Younger Boy’s fingers were tightening around his heart.

They walked on.

\---

He had stopped trying to bully them into sleeping in their own bedrolls. The Younger Boy had been part of The Older Boy’s sleep for nearly the entirety of his life. Every night they would settle down slowly falling into sleep, breathing one anothers air, warming themselves in one anothers heat.

Sometimes The Man would be woken by soft whispering and he would recognize the cadence of The Older Boy telling simple stories of the mother, the words tangling into The Younger Boy’s hair. The Older Boy’s arms a cradle. And in those darkling hours The Man could listen too, holding his breath until his lungs burned.

In the mornings, he woke before them, the two asleep, mouths moving in troubled dreams, starving pups suckling the dead bitch.

In the desolation of the lonely plain, The Boys had one another and who was he to cleave them apart, an amputation of the soul, the heart of each of them held in the others hand. No, better this way. But on some nights he could not bear to see them wrapped around one another and knew he could not bear to pull them into his own arms and he would move to the far side of the fire and curl around himself and count the dead suns in the coffin sky.

\---

The monster found them late in the afternoon. It had taken the thing almost an hour to do so and The Man was reassured by this. The length of time. They were getting better at hiding, being hidden, remaining unseen. Of all the things he had one time thought to teach his Boys; this then was his legacy, hide and stay hidden.

The monster crested the small hill and nearly fell on top of them as the dirt crumbled away beneath his boots. The Older Boy squirmed sideways to cover The Younger Boy with his body but the creature was faster, better fed, and he reached down quickly and as fast as a knife cut had The Younger Boy by the sleeve, then the arm, then around the neck.

The Man pulled the Colt out, away from his body, the steel of it leaving a trail of cold on his belly. His hand was steady, the barrel unwavering. His fear feeding his ravenous rage.

Put him down. Let him go. Now.

For a crazy moment he thought the monster might actually answer by bending his head and tearing into The Younger Boy with his broken teeth and ragged lips. The Older Boy saw this movement too and choked out a silent no. The Man hushed him while locking gazes with The Younger Boy. His nod imperceptible, waiting, The Younger Boy blinked yes. He pulled the trigger and the monster’s head exploded, dead on his feet. The Younger Boy hit the ground with the corpse but The Older Boy leapt across and scooped him up, under the armpits, pulling him against his own boy body, his feet on the ground running now. The Man shoved the Colt back into his waistband, grabbed for the packs and followed.

That night, The Boys slept curled around one another. He watched them for a long time, the light of the small fire flickering across their faces. Then he pulled the gun from his belt and opened the chamber. The casing fell into his palm, empty.

Relief became a kind of despair.

He let the other two rounds fall into his palm and pushed them around with a finger. Two live rounds, one empty casing. Two bullets left. He thought he might begin screaming and he picked up the empty shell and put it on his tongue. The spent sulfur taste of it calming him. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

When he slept he dreamt his mouth was cavernous and if he opened it wide enough he could consume the world.

\---

No day was a good day to die. There would be no good death for him. Life must be more about living for death to matter more than dying.

The Man pulled the acrid air into his lungs, the embers in his heart almost ash now, all gone to ash.

Up ahead of him, in the road, The Boys were playing a game by rules known only to them. The Man had spent years trying to sort it. He had never asked. He really didn’t want to know. There was a kind of magic in watching them play, the reassurance of a masterly card trick.

The game involved a pocketful of rocks, two gnarled sticks, the ends worn to knobs, and a pattern of runs and stops that teased the corners of his mind. Then with a whomping shift inside his head, he remembered a game grown men had once played, audience of millions. He shunted the memory, flicking it away as one would flick a spider off the shoulder. Biting pain there. Only pain.

He cast his gaze across the falling horizon. He knew they were closer to the edge of it now. Skidding pocketfuls of sand beneath their feet. Sound of breaking water. He wanted to believe that the smell of death was something on his skin, inside the cavities of his head, not the smell of the sea.

Please, don’t let it be the sea. Not this, too.

His lips moved and he stilled them with gloved fingers shoved against his face.

In front of him, The Boys crested the hill first and he watched as they stopped, sudden and still. He nodded to himself. This then was to be his greatest tragedy. After so many other unimaginable heart-breaking horrors.

He climbed slowly to stand beside them, his feet slurring in eddies of dry sand. He did not want to look; he did not want to see. They had been moving towards this place for as long as he allowed himself to remember. He looked down at The Older Boy, across to The Younger Boy. It was then that he noticed they were holding hands, holding fast to one another.

He raised his eyes, lifted his face to the silvered skies. He saw the sea and he swallowed the tears to keep them from falling and that last bit of wetness doused the fire inside of him.


End file.
